Why I WON'T Blog about the Earthquake
Quite simply, this is a humor blog. There was nothing in the least bit funny about the earthquake. In fact, I've never been so terrified in my life. Can anyone explain the humor in thinking that you and your sleeping one year old baby are about to be crushed under thousands of pounds of rubble? Is there really any humor in suddenly having your house start grumbling, shaking and swaying under your feet while your possessions are shaken off the shelves? And I'm dying to know where the humor is in try to decide while your house is being shaken like a Mexican maraca whether to immediately dive for cover and save yourself, or whether to risk running back to your child's room, grabbing them, THEN dive for cover? What would you do? I couldn't decide so I just stood in the hallway doing nothing until the house stopped shaking.
But even after the 12 second shake-up, my house was still moving. In L.A., buildings are built to sway when an earthquake hits (rather than crack) so for a good 20 seconds afterward, my chandeliers, mirrors and confidence were still rather wobbly. A picture that had fallen from the wall in my baby's room had woken her and she started screaming. Lester the Giraffe wasn't built for this kind of excitement and he tumbled from his perch on the shelf. My sugar bowl in the kitchen fell onto the floor, seeking cover.
But wait - I think I'm still missing some of the humor. You see, an earthquake can often trigger aftershocks, which can be even bigger than the main event. For 24 hours after the main earthquake, you are at risk of aftershocks getting you. Rather than sitting around gripping my children with white knuckles for the rest of the day, I picked up Pixie from pre-school, cranked up the volume on the white noise machine, and made us all nap all afternoon. I didn't want to be awake when the roof fell in on me.
So no. I don't get the humor in earthquakes. Ironicly, I've spent the last four years that I've lived in L.A. secretly hoping to feel a big one because I thought it would be cool. I was wrong. Not cool.
So tell me, peanut gallery, where is the humor?
But even after the 12 second shake-up, my house was still moving. In L.A., buildings are built to sway when an earthquake hits (rather than crack) so for a good 20 seconds afterward, my chandeliers, mirrors and confidence were still rather wobbly. A picture that had fallen from the wall in my baby's room had woken her and she started screaming. Lester the Giraffe wasn't built for this kind of excitement and he tumbled from his perch on the shelf. My sugar bowl in the kitchen fell onto the floor, seeking cover.
But wait - I think I'm still missing some of the humor. You see, an earthquake can often trigger aftershocks, which can be even bigger than the main event. For 24 hours after the main earthquake, you are at risk of aftershocks getting you. Rather than sitting around gripping my children with white knuckles for the rest of the day, I picked up Pixie from pre-school, cranked up the volume on the white noise machine, and made us all nap all afternoon. I didn't want to be awake when the roof fell in on me.
So no. I don't get the humor in earthquakes. Ironicly, I've spent the last four years that I've lived in L.A. secretly hoping to feel a big one because I thought it would be cool. I was wrong. Not cool.
So tell me, peanut gallery, where is the humor?
Comments
Glad your o.k.!
BTW---my kids didn't even notice. We were in the grocery store checking out, and they didn't notice?! How is that possible? :)
The next morning, it was all over the news. It was a good sized quake, and we weren't really that close to the epicenter. (but we still felt it)
Later that day, when our son broke a vase in the condo, we thought about blaming it on the earthquake. (we didn't)
Look at the bright side. Now, you are a real Californian. It's like Governor Arnold's way of hazing you.
Move to PA, we don't get too many natural disasters.
The good thing is that California in general has spent a lot of time, money, and effort to make their buildings safer and earthquake resistant. When the "Big One" eventually hits the New Madrid fault, all us midwesterners are out of luck. Swaying buildings? What are those?
You'd have to go to a college to find the humor - find a bunch of 20-somethings with no children to protect. During my last earthquake, I was in a Very Old Building on campus. I was asleep on a couch in the hall, between classes. At first, I thought it was a BIG TRUCK driving by that caused the sound and the shaking. I even went to the window to see the huge truck that MUST be driving by. I didn't see a truck, but I did see the street waving like water.
Later that day, we heard that one of our classmates (a California transplant) entertained his classmates by standing up during the quake and "surfing" the floor. He didn't fall, and we were lucky there was no damage to our building. One of the libraries lost a few stacks of books.
A bar Downtown wasn't so lucky. It was completely demolished...but it was the only building, in the entire city, that suffered such damage. Funny thing was that it was ALSO the scene of a fairly brutal attack on a womanh recently during Mardi Gras.
Draw your own conclusions.
Again, SO glad your sugar bowl was the only loss!
I am surprised you had stuff fall down...even the precariously perched glasses in our dish drainer were unfazed. You must live in a rockin' part of South Pas!
That's too funny about the CA college student "surfing" during the quake. Yeah, I'm going to have to experience a few more of them before I can really laugh about it.
I've never been in an earthquake. Tornadoes, on the other hand, I've experienced. And yes, they really do sound like a freight train.